Looking for Two Royals Fans

Specifically:

And

They know who they are and I'm pretty sure regular blog haunters recognize them too. If you do, please go pester them so they will come here. They'll thank you for it.

So here's the deal. My life has been crappy lately. Real crappy. After this week it will still likely be crappy, but it will be a little less hectic I think maybe. Since the hectic will be reduced I'm going to start building up a little good karma and start sending out packages again. I'm going to start with the people I know for a fact I owe stuff to or at least feel like I owe 'em stuff. I owe these two stuff because they sent me this nifty Andruw Jones Relic and this kick ass Jason Heyward auto. So with them being Royals fans, I thought I'd send 'em some Royals cards.

Basically, I got a large pile of interesting Royals cards a while back and it was too good to send all to one person so I split it in half and made two equal piles of Royally goodness. The first one to comment out of those two can choose lot A or B. They are pretty much equal, so don't sweat about your choice. So it's not completely random (and so everyone else has something to look at), here is a card from each pile:

PILE A:
Wilson George Brett Signature Glove Tag

Did you know that the tags are actually listed in the Price Guide? The big fat one that looks like a thin volume of Cerebus, not that magazine thing. This one here booked for $12 in my 2002 guide. I really need a new guide.

Here's the inside of the tag. I thought I had something witty or insightful to say about it, but I don't.

PILE B
Spot-Bilt George Brett GB5 Oddball

I had never heard of this card before I saw it with my own eyes. Keeping with the sporting equipment oddball theme, this card was inserted inside boxes of baseball cleats. It's not a bad looking 80's oddball card.

The card number is five but this is the only one in the set. Brett fans know what 5 means. Very Topps-like back, this is a well designed oddball.

Ok you two, Choose..... and Perish. If you ignore me I'll send out an e-mail this weekend. Ignore me too long and I'll trade 'em off to another Royals fan out there. There has to be more than two... right? Along with the cards and stuff will be a relic for Darkship and an auto for Matt to reciprocate their earlier trades. Someone pick a pile... I know you're out there.

Trading with Todd

One of the things I need to catch up on are the posts on trades I've made. I was going pretty good for about a month. Then I got busy so I saved a couple of posts for later. Of course more trades came in, and before too long I had a pile of trades and no time to post about 'em. So of course, like any good procrastinator I just sort of forgot about them completely and moved on. Well, no more! From now on, they're posted as they come in. Here's one I made recently with reader Todd.

The core of the trade was a simple one - He pulled a John Smoltz jersey from Allen & Ginter and wanted my Battle of Thermopylae code card. Sounded good to me so I accepted. Of course trades just can't be this simple so a pile of Braves came my way and a pile of Royals are on their way to him. Here's some of what I sent:

Hopefully there's a few in there Todd likes... Here's the haul I got in return.

2007 UD Masterpieces Chipper Jones

I seem to get one of these every trade, but I'm not complaining. I might try to wallpaper a room with 'em one day like Thorzul's legendary Ed Lynch room.

A couple of UD Elements Braves cards

I think I only need the clear Chipper Jones card now. This could have been a neat set had Upper Deck not screwed it up so badly.

2008 A&G Yunel Escobar base and mini

Ah, I love Yesco. If it weren't for him playing so well, we wouldn't have Jair Jurrjens right now. Can you believe that he's now the undisputed ace of the staff thanks to everyone else's arm falling off? I really hope Bobby doesn't overwork him. I'm kind of hoping for him to get a groin pull or something so he can go on the DL for a while to keep his arm from getting wrecked from too many innings. This is my first Brave A&G mini too.

2008 A&G Matt Diaz SP

I've got the Glavine SP too so only one more Braves short print and the team set is smooth sailing from there.

2005 Topps Gallery Hank Aaron Gallo's Gallery.

This is a neat insert card featuring a sketch from cartoonist Bill Gallo. I'm kicking myself for passing up the Chipper jones sketch a couple weeks ago when I had a chance to pick it up. I'm surprised Topps hasn't started to insert sketches like this actually drawn on the card itself in any of their sports card products yet. The concept is huge in their non sports sets.

2005 Playoff Absolute Chipper Jones Tools of the Trade

Any Chipper insert is welcome in this house, this one is numbered to 100 which is a bonus.

2008 Topps Heritage Andruw Jones Bat relic

This is one of the last cards I needed for my '08 Heritage team set. Relic cards have become so common that I consider them part of the team set now.

2008 Legendary Cuts Tom Glavine Jersey

I didn't expect this in the package, but it's pretty cool. I like how Tom is in the braves uniform, but that's a Mets' stripe on the jersey swatch. I have cards where the unis are vice versa so the circle is now complete.

2008 A&G John Smoltz jersey

Here's the card that started this mess. I'm going to try to get all 7 Braves relics to go along with the set. Now I have two in hand and Chipper on the way. It's funny, I was mocking Topps' choice to put a Mike Hampton jersey card in A&G, and now he's the only one of the Braves' pitchers with a relic card who isn't hurt right now.

Todd Just e-mailed me saying he had a Frenchy auto for me too, I'm looking forward to that one.

Now it's time to start packing up cards for the other trades I have in the mix. If you'll ecxuse me, I have Orioles and Indians cards to find.

Trading Mania - Baseballcardman

One of the many trades I've made lately is with blogger Baseballcardman. He posted an offer I couldn't refuse: 25 Royals cards for 25 of my team. I got plenty of Royals to go around and I could always use more Braves. Actually, I specified "any Atlanta team" just to make it interesting. I tried to send off a good mix to The Man, and we both fudged on the number of cards. Final Tally: Chiefs 28, Falcons 27. Curses! Next time he gets a shoebox full. Actually, now that I think about it, I sent him an unopened pack for Donruss All Stars too. W00t! Late touchdown pass from Vick Chris Redman to Crumpler Roddy White! Here's my pack of goodies:

1998 Pacific Paramount Chipper Jones - Is it just me or do all the Pacific releases just kind of mush together? They had some really striking, really innovative cards in the 90's but they're all completely irrelevant now. That is, except to player collectors, and Chippers = Gold in my book.

1992 Leaf John Smoltz
2005 Upper Deck Classics Phil Niekro
1987 Topps Gene Garber - 2 Braves starters and 2 Braves closers in 3 cards. Highly efficient.

2002 Paul Bako - this one goes in my woefully neglected 2000's Topps Braves Team sets binder.

1992 US Playing Card Ron Gant 4 of Hearts
1992 US Playing Card Ron Gant 8 of clubs
1992 US Playing Card Tom Glavine Queen of Spades - This was the flop the time I went all in with a pair of aces. I had to sell my car when I found out the other guy had a pair of 4s. Thanks, Baseballcardman.

1990 US Playing Card Greg Olson 2 of Diamonds - this was the river card. I loved that car.

2001 Upper Deck Legends Andruw Jones - this is a nice looking set but I can't show it to you for 4 more days.
2002 Upper Deck Victory Steve Karsay

2001 Fleer Platinum Winston Abreu and Wilson Betemit Rookies
2001 Bowman Heritage Macay McBride RC
2001 Bowman Heritage Kelly Johnson RC - four highly regarded prospects and seven years later only one of them is a solid contributor to their original team. That's actually a pretty good ratio come to think of it.

1986 Topps Gerald Perry
1999 Skybox Thunder Andres Galarraga - There are short prints in this Skybox set, but I don't think anyone knows or cares about them anymore.

2001 Fleer Platinum Greg Maddux - as insanely popular as the retro Heritage products by Topps are, you have to remember that Fleer, Donruss and Upper Deck all tried the same gimmick and they all flopped horrifically. And suckers like me bought all of them. and now we have entire boxes full of flops.

1998 Upper Deck Kenny Lofton - Ok, the Ban is lifted for one card because Kenny looks delightfully demented on this card. I'm cropping out the logo though.

1998 Score Andruw Jones - Pinnacle brutally killed a great Score brand and for that I will never forgive them.

2004 Studio JD Drew
2004 Studio Michael Hessman
2004 Studio Rafael Furcal - All gone. Long gone. I miss Studio more than the players though.

1992 Upper Deck John Smoltz - Howcome UD didn't put the great picture of Smoltzie dealing heat on the front and the lousy picture of him swinging a bat like a rusty gate on the back??

1995-96 Topps Basketball Alan Henderson RC - Alan was shaping up to be a nice player, but then got really sick and was never the same. He was going for a medical degree, I wonder if he's a doctor now?

1993 Bowman Andre Rison - Andre gets the greasy oil slick treatment on the border of his card, which is what he became after the Dolphin defender flattened him.

1977 Topps Football Ray Easterling - '70s Topps Football cards rule. Correction - 70's Topps ANYTHING rules!

1989 Score Keith Jones RC
1989 Score Mike Kenn - oh what I would give for an offensive tackle like Mike Kenn on the Falcons' line again...


Great bunch of cards from the Baseballcardman. I'd trade with him again, but I'm afraid of what could happen if baseball card junkie and a man made out of baseball cards got together in person. It could be ugly.